Prompt, as Always
by Neon Daisies
Summary: A series of vignettes based on Iron Man and LiveJournal's Tony/Pepper community 100 prompt challenge. You begin to see the pun... TS/PP when appropriate.
1. Red

**Author's Note:** yeah, well, here it is because I'm completely obsessed with the amazingness that was and is Iron Man. I haven't fangirled this hard since the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie came out.

I'm trying my hand at the LJ "Pepperony" community's 100 prompt challenge. So this isn't going to be any kind of cohesive at all. All will be one-shots. We'll see how far I get. Right now it's my goal to get through all 100 before the movie is released to DVD, but I make no promises.

**Disclaimer:** if I owned Iron Man or anyone associated with it, I'd probably still write fanfic, but then it wouldn't be fanfic. It'd be canon. Lucky for the Iron Man 'verse I'm on the outside looking in. Credit Stan Lee, Universal, Marvel, and whoever else for intellectual property. Credit Jon Favreau, Mark Fergus & Hawk Ostby, Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, et al for bringing them to life.

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**100 Prompt Challenge**

**#3 - Red**

* * *

The Afghani sand is red through the lenses of Tony Stark's sunglasses. The air is red, his Scotch is red, the snow on those ridiculously close mountains looks as if its been hit by sunset, and even the soldiers sharing the humvee with him have taken on a distinctly rose tone. And then, despite the fact that he's taken off his sunglasses, the flames from the vehicle exploding at the front of their convoy are a shocking deep crimson red…and black.

* * *

His ears are ringing and his face stings. Amazing that a slight sting is all that troubles him even though one of his own bombs just exploded in his face. Then that first torturous breath works its way down his throat and pain leaps into full flower throughout his entire body. The sound of his heart takes precedence over the ringing in his ears. He coughs, hoping it'll ease the pain in his chest, but it only increases it.

His head weighs at least a thousand pounds and he struggles to lift it. His arms are similarly weighted, groping feebly at his chest as he tries to locate the damage.

Wet heat…and red – soaking, damning red – spreads across his shirt. Adrenaline surges, making the wetness spread. Panic gives him the strength to tear open his shirt, and disbelieving eyes prove what his mind already knows is true.

Blood.

Not even _his_ body armor – superior in almost every way to what the soldiers had been wearing – can protect against shrapnel at point blank range.

His head falls back into the dust. His eyes close.

The sun is red against his eyelids.

* * *

Red is the color of panic. Simultaneously burning hot and icy cold, his vision is a red tunnel as his mind races to play catch-up. Data – blurry images, corrupted code – streams in, and while his memory is faulty his intelligence is not. It gives a label to the hose he pulls out of his nostril – _breathing tube_ – as his body gags and he fights not to throw up. It identifies his rough surroundings – _cave_. It analyzes the crushing, dull-red sensation in his chest – _pain_ – and backs it up with the dizzy memories of blood leaking through his body armor, the distant sound of his screams, bright light, hands holding him down, and unrelenting agony.

He's alive, but that knowledge is almost more devastating that realizing he's not dead. He doesn't know _why_ he's alive, and he can't help but fear the reason he is.

* * *

Red is panic. Red is fear. And red is the color of a cable connecting a car battery – even in the midst of a full-blown panic attack Tony Stark can recognize a car battery – to his chest. Red – dull, rusty red – is the color staining the bandages running around his torso. Red is angry, inflamed skin, swollen around stitches and the hunk of metal taking pride of place in his sternum. Red is the color of copper wiring gleaming in sparse light.

Once again red is the blanket that smothers him and his mind mercifully shuts down, rebooting…

* * *

He'd never known red was so varied, or so omnipresent. In his dark, cold, dun and tan and blue world, there was red everywhere.

It was in the soil he packed to form a crude mold.

It was in the fire that melted the metal that was so essential to his life now.

It was the copper wide needed to create an electromagnet.

In uglier moments it was the color staining his eyes, remnants of days without sleep, of fumes from an unventilated workshop.

Red was a threat in the form of coal dying on an anvil.

Red was the sullen glow of metal as it was heated, worked, and shaped.

Red… Finally red was Yinsen laying on bags of grain stamped in that particularly patriotic American hue.

Tony Stark never wanted to see red again.

* * *

The plane touched down, its bay doors opened. It was a sunny day in Malibu, California. And in that moment Tony Stark realized that not all shades of red were created equal. The blazing red hair waiting for him on the woman standing on the tarmac – had it ever appeared so vibrant? – put steel into his spine, made his chin fall into a more confident angle when what he should have been doing was watching his feet.

Oh well, that was what Rhodey was there for.

Even so – even though he felt like he never wanted to look away from the sleek mass of hair adoring Pepper Potts' head – it was no match for the smile on her face. Insuppressible joy. Even though it was her hair he never wanted to forget – wanted to stamp over every red he'd seen in the last three months – it wasn't the red he eventually commented on. _Couldn't _comment on, not when it held so much power over him.

So another red then. A safer red. And yet…what other red – even the glory of her hair – could merit his attention when he _saw_ her so completely?

"Your eyes are red. Tears for your long lost boss?"

He saw the struggle for composure, saw it lose to the twinkle in her eye, the spark of mischief that only comes from beating overwhelming odds.

"Tears of joy, maybe." Yes, he knows they are. Can hear the truth of it in the tone that tries for composure but only reaches a intimate teasing. "I hate job hunting."

And because he's still too struck by the beauty of red, he follows her lead. If he doesn't he can't guess what will come out of his mouth.

"Yeah, well, vacation's over."

* * *

**Note 2:** Yes, I realized after I started writing that the sunglasses Mr. Stark has on in Afghanistan aren't like any kind of shade of red, but I'd already started writing and it was good stuff. :P And I justify my creative license by the presence of a pair of rosy hued glasses on his nose while in Vegas, so he obviously owns some. Good enough for me.

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	2. Female

**Author's Note:** this story was actually inspired by Christmas tree lights. Because strings of Christmas tree lights have a male and a female end. And that made me think that without one the other is pretty useless, and that led to thoughts of Tony and Pepper.

* * *

**100 Prompt Challenge**

**Prompt #68 - Female**

* * *

Tony Stark pondered the decapitated video – or perhaps sound – plug sitting on his desk. First of all, he wondered why anyone – alright, why _he_ – would find it necessary to cut a plug off a wire in _this_ workshop. It wasn't as if he was wanting for components. And honestly, who stripped wire unless they had to?

Okay, so wire-stripping could at times be considered good, clean fun. Still, you'd think he'd remember if he'd had to resort to such desperate measures.

He snorted. If he'd been caught up in working on the suit, he wouldn't have noticed anything but the minor annoyance that he had to stop for more wire.

Taking a break from the briefs Pepper had piled on his desk, Tony leaned back in his chair and considered the plug's unlucky fate. The prong is shiny; obviously it hadn't seen much use. Which made sense. Tony couldn't think of a single piece of sound – or video – equipment down here that would fit a quarter inch plug. Any sort of interface down here, if it wasn't wireless – and he couldn't think of anything that wasn't wireless – would need an RCA jack. And without a female adaptor…

_Poor bastard_, Tony thinks with an amused smirk. _Wonder if he got plugged in even once._

Thoughts of women he'd known inevitably followed. Tall, short, curvy, lean, some smart, some merely intelligent. Blonds, brunettes, red heads… None of them particularly memorable, though the red heads were especially forgettable for some reason.

_Well, most of them are especially forgettable,_ he amended as his music was abruptly lowered and the click of heels against concrete flooring took its place.

Tony frowned when he realized how much time he'd spent in idle contemplation. He'd gotten absolutely no work done at all.

"Mr. Stark?" It was less question than astute observation. That tone made it very clear that his able assistant knew he'd made no headway. "What part of 'sign these or you and I are going through every one with a fine-toothed comb' did you not understand?"

He leaned back further in his chair, could feel that tension between the delicate balance of staying upright and overturning. Pepper looked tall from this position; the line of her jaw is exquisite. He wondered what he'd have to do to be treated to this view more often. Preferably nothing that would have him confined to a bed unless she was confined there as well.

"There was a deadline, Ms. Potts?"

"Yes, there was –"

"Because I don't remember hearing you mention a deadline."

Pepper flipped the first brief over so that it was lying face up on his workstation. Written on a florescent yellow Post-It in her neat handwriting was, _The courier is coming at five to pick these up._

"Hmm…don't I employ the courier?"

Her reply was patient and insubordinate at the same time. "Of course you do. However, you don't employ your board of directors, the California Department of Energy, or Bill Gates –"

"Bill Gates?"

" – who is still waiting for an answer about whether or not you're going to attend his foundation's symposium on the benefits of using any and all applicable technology to advance health care," Pepper concluded as if she'd known exactly what he was going to ask before he did.

Which was probably less "as if" and more "always knew what he was going to ask."

"Right. Do I have to speak?"

"No, sir. I believe they want you to take off your shirt and dance on the tables."

He knew it was a flippant reference to the arc reactor, but he couldn't let the matter drop.

"Harboring fantasies, Ms. Potts?"

"Not at all."

"Because, if so, I'd be glad –"

"The point being, Mr. Stark, that the responses to all of these matters are going to have to be sent overnight if they're to reach the right people by tomorrow morning, and the courier is going to be here in…" She throws out her arm and checks the watch adorning her delicate wrist. "Forty-five minutes. And these still aren't in their envelopes."

Exactly forty-three minutes later Tony watched as Pepper gathered up the signed – and ready to mail – briefs. She rattled off a list of reminders for the next day as she left the basement workshop. He could hear her asking Jarvis to remind him of it all again before the door swung shut behind her but his mind was on the pair of legs too quickly disappearing from sight as she climbed the stairs to the first level.

Just like that his desk was clear again, except for a poor forlorn plug half hidden behind the base of one of his flat-screens.

His musing takes a new direction. He has a lot in common with that plug. Both of them supposedly broken beyond repair, both in need of energy from a foreign source to maintain their existence…both in need of a female adaptor to justify that existence. Because that's what Pepper is to him. It's not just that she's all he has or that he can't remember his Social Security number – as if he'll ever need to collect Social Security – but that she's the one that keeps him from being "that brilliant, reclusive genius who finishes everything but can never do anything with it because he's offended most of the business people in the Western hemisphere."

Female. Strong and soft, demanding and nurturing, charming and businesslike, sensual and straightforward…and the only person capable of structuring his life so he can actually _be_ Tony Stark.

No. Pepper enables Tony to be Tony.

With a little grin, he tosses the plug so that it rolls up against the picture of his and his dad he keeps on his desk where hopefully it won't be buried.


	3. Glow

**100 Prompt Challenge**

**Prompt #53 – Glow**

* * *

The room was dark, weighted in its stillness. She hardly dare breathe. Every time she shifted in her seat she would freeze, startled by the rustle of cloth rubbing against cloth. When she moved, her actions drowned out the harsh rasping coming from the bed. Its sometimes uneven rhythm already had her heart stopping more often than was good for it so she tried not to move at all.

It's like living in an aquarium, she imagines. All the little fish dormant, floating in space, the gurgle of the aeration system, the blue glow…

Pepper had thought that the glow from the arc reactor was white. Not that she had much first hand experience with it. When Tony was dressed for business, a slight glow might escape around the edge of his tie, at most. And in those times when he was working the garage in those ridiculously tight t-shirts, she was always struggling just to keep his attention or to keep up with him to bother with extensive sightseeing.

But now in the dark, weighty stillness Pepper had all the time in the world to notice that the light from the arc reactor was a blue-tinged white, a wintery glow that spilled across his bare chest and caught in the weave of the bandages wrapped around his right shoulder and upper chest. It frosted the ends of his goatee and slid up the planes of his jaw, stopping just short of his closed eyelids. Even the ceiling was faintly illuminated.

That glow…

It had comforted at first…until she'd realized it would keep on glowing for years and years, whether Tony was alive or not. Where his heart was dependent on the reactor, the reactor was not dependent on his heart. And an absurd vision slid into her mind's eye of her – old and grey of course, as could only be proper – explaining to the funeral director why they couldn't possibly have an open casket…

Pepper's eyes fluttered under the weight of her exhaustion; keeping them open was becoming a losing battle. Her shoulders still ached from the effort of propping Tony up long enough for his machines to get him out of his suit. One of her heels had snapped under the weight of him. There was a small cut on her cheek where the jagged edge of his shoulder plate had cut her when she'd stumbled and almost dropped him. He'd been aware then, had tried to take some of his weight back but she'd only kicked off her shoes and braced herself more firmly. Part of her had dimly noticed later that the same piece of metal that'd cut her cheek was the one she'd had to pull out of his shoulder. God…how long had that thing been? Six inches? Seven? Eight? It hadn't mattered then. All that had mattered was that it'd been long enough for her to get a good grip on it. He'd already tried, his hands red and slick with his failure. She'd been able to get enough leverage to really pull on it.

The ankle she'd twisted getting him up the stairs to his own bedroom throbbed as she rushed to the bathroom.

Pepper rinsed her mouth out and splashed some water on her face. Then she gathered some scrap of resolve she must have overlooked earlier and locked away the memory of blood welling up out of his wound like water out of a sluggish fountain, locked away the steely resolve in his eyes as he demanded she stitch him up or at least throw some superglue on the wound because he's damn well not going lie here on the floor while she puts all her weight on his shoulder for however long it'll take to stop the bleeding. She puts away the memory of soft regret that softened the steel, regret at asking her to do something that she should never _have_ to do. It's an imperfect world though, and she's all he has and he's all she has, and what else is there to do?

How bad could it be? How bad could a needle be in comparison to what she'd already pulled out of him?

"_Weak,"_ she told him. _"That's a weak argument."_

"_Only you would expect logic at a time like this, Potts. Just sew me up."_ And he'd touched her face so lightly she hadn't known until this moment when she'd seen the bloody handprint on her cheek that it'd been for real.

She filled the glass one last time and carried it back out into the bedroom, walking softly both to accommodate her ankle and to keep from drowning out the breaths coming from the bed. Carefully she sat on the edge of the bed, one leg folded under her. With one arm she tenderly cradled his head against her chest as she let a small trickle of water pass through his lips. Hopefully it would help soothe that dry rasp…

Tony's eyes snapped open, and then Pepper was on the floor, water soaking through her shirt. She could hear him cursing, his voice raspy but vigorous, and then he was looking down at her from the bed.

"Potts? You're all wet." He sounded confused and admiring, and instead of feeling relief she started getting annoyed.

"And you're awake." Her voice was dryer by far than she was, and she started plucking at the wet silk of her top to keep it from clinging to her skin.

"Yeah. Sorry about that. I uh…" He stopped looking at her chest and rubbed the back of his neck with his good hand. He actually looked…self-conscious. "You were just…really close. And your hair was blue." The hand attached to the wounded arm moved towards the arc reactor.

"I take it you're just fine," she said, rising to her feet.

"Well, my cold's worse and my shoulder hurts like a son of a…." He seemed to think twice about cursing in front of her before pulling himself together. "And needless to say I'd be a lot better if I'd had a little forewarning about whose chest I was I was going to wake up snuggled up to –"

Pepper was glad of the dark, glad his chest provided the room's only illumination. It was no gift to feel like the world's most melodramatic, schmaltzy, desperately deluded nitwit, but at least her boss had no clue how long she'd sat at what she'd thought was his possible deathbed.

" – though not that I'm complaining or anything, but _why_ was I cuddled up to your chest?"

Pepper made that little head-tossing motion that both got her hair out of her eyes and helped her compose herself. "I heard you coughing from down the hall. I thought I drink might help."

"And why didn't you just wake me up?"

Damn him. He sounded amused. She wasn't so sure that she didn't prefer him unconscious.

Pepper gave the little shoulder wiggle that helped her correct her posture and reminded her that was a professional. "You collapsed as soon as I got you into bed, sir."

"Yeah, sorry I wasn't more help earlier but I haven't slept for a few days. The suit's autopilot is still…erratic." He yawned and leaned back in the bed.

"If that's everything, sir, I'll just…" Pepper didn't even bother coming up with what she'd _just_. Instead she turned around and prepared to leave the room before he could think of anything else to say.

"It's not everything." When she looked at him suspiciously over her shoulder Tony kept himself from asking if she'd come sit back down so that he could cuddle up to her without the panic of waking to find himself confined by unknown arms. "Thanks, Pepper."

Her eyes softened and he caught a glimpse of a small smile on her face. "You're very welcome, sir."

"How many times am I going to ask you to call me Tony?" he called after her as she closed the door.

"Goodnight, _sir_."

Tony grinned to himself and shifted around so that he wasn't lying under wet blankets. "Jarvis, how long was Ms. Potts in my room?"

"Since you fell asleep, sir."

With another grin – a deeply satisfied one – Tony turned onto his side and snuggled into his pillow. It was a poor substitute but if he concentrated hard enough, it made a passable one for the woman who'd just left.


	4. The Sound of His Voice

**Author's Note:** yay! Been working on this one for a few days now. This one is inspired by the birthday conversation. (You have plans? I don't like it when you have plans.) And then when he wanted to know what she'd gotten herself from him for her birthday, he sounded so genuinely interested, and it's that tone of voice that resonated with the prompt of "soft." Everything else grew out of that, because obviously Tony doesn't talk like that all the time, and Tony and Pepper spend more time in each other's company than out of it, it seems, so it makes sense that she'd be familiar with all his tones of voice and would relate them to different facets of his personality.

Oh, and this piece actually has a title! The first one that does...and it's not mine. It's actually stolen from the title of one of my favorite episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, entitled "The Sound of Her Voice." Seventh season, I believe. Good stuff.

* * *

**100 Prompt Challenge**

**#19 – Soft**

**The Sound of His Voice**

* * *

Ms. Pepper Potts would know the sound of her boss's voice anywhere. It was a familiarity bred through hours and hours of working together. Well, perhaps that wasn't quite the right term. "Together" implied some sort of mutual goal. Tony Stark was both her boss and her work – though some days he was more effective at being work than boss. Deep down they both knew that when he'd signed her on he'd effectively signed his life away. Of course, so had she. As the CEO of one of the biggest corporations in America, Tony Stark was always on the go. And as the personal assistant to Tony Stark, so was she. She had to be ready to leap into action at a moment's notice, and so many times it was his voice and not his words that gave her her cues.

From board meetings, to press conferences, to sound bites repeated ad nauseum on cable news channels whether she was with him or at home trying to relax after a long day. His voice was the soundtrack to her life, always there, always just a little louder than anything else happening around her.

The boss voice is dry, staccato. Sometimes absentminded. It reminds her of the voice of a surgeon speaking to his nurses mid-procedure. It might sound curt to anyone who only hears but doesn't listen, but Pepper doesn't mind the lack of courtesy clauses. _Please. Thank you._ Question marks at the end of statements that aren't questions at all. She doesn't miss their presence. They aren't needed because he knows that she'll do whatever it takes to get the job done. Doesn't matter what the job is. As his employee Pepper is the physical manifestation of his voice and will. He never says please because he knows he never really has to ask. His confidence in her – though sometimes a little over-inflated – is both please and thank you enough.

* * *

Potts would know the sound of Stark's voice anywhere. Stark's tones were not the same as her boss's. Her boss was someone who understood the daily grind of keeping a business in the black. When they were employer and employee they were a team, he the hand and she the glove. He had the power to get things done and she was there to protect and enable.

When her boss turned into Stark though, that was when she turned into Potts. Potts had had great success in high school as a babysitter, earning upwards of two hundred a month because she had the force of will to babysit groups of children. Large groups of children. And when Stark was out in force, she became Potts, the woman with experience in corralling the obstinate and unreasonable.

Stark was the public persona of business. He was the man who appeared on magazine covers, who showed up to charity events, and ribbon cuttings, and interviews. He was the media darling, the charming face of the company, the smooth talker who would say outrageous things with a wink and a smile.

Potts had lots of opportunities to manage Stark. And as any good babysitter knows, tone of voice is the difference between a child who's hurt and a child who's just pissed off. Stark's tones were no different, and she'd learned all of them by heart.

The hard, rapid-fire pace when he was being a smart-ass.

The flat tone he adopted when trying to talk his way out of murder. Usually with great

success.

The drunken slur – still fast; the seductive murmur that was differentiated from the slur

only because it was slower.

The tired, cynical tone he'd slip into when she'd pressed him into one appearance too many without giving him any time to be alone with himself for even five minutes.

All of it, as familiar to her as the sound of her own voice. Sometimes more than, if they

were arguing. Or what passed for arguing between them. She was too aware of her

professionalism to truly argue and he knew that she was too aware of her professionalism to truly argue. But Stark was who he was, and he would just plow over her if she gave him half a chance.

Potts never did. He never stopped, so she'd learned to keep up.

* * *

Pepper would know the sound of Tony's voice anywhere. It wasn't just a matter of having become intimate with it over years of close acquaintance, and obscenely late – or early – phone calls, or from countless instances where he'd wander through his home calling for her at obnoxious levels.

It was…god, it was just _Tony_. The man talked. To anything. Even to the computers that couldn't talk back. And she didn't think it was that he just loved the sound of his own voice. He was just a talker, and she knows every nuance.

The gravel first thing in the morning; the energy in the late afternoon and evening; the enthusiasm when talking shop with his engineers. The fuzzy quality when he was distracted by something other – sometimes she thought _anything_ other – that what she was trying to talk to him about. Tony teased, and Tony joked, and Tony would talk to himself constantly if he ever forgot that someone else was in the room with him.

But the thing that was most uniquely Tony was when he talked to her, when he talked to _Pepper_. His voice – dry, amused, frustrated, exhausted, whatever – would become so very soft. Not quiet. It wasn't the volume that would change. And she wouldn't even really label that quality as tenderness either. If pressed, Pepper would say that sometimes – like that morning he'd left for Afghanistan – his voice became the audible equivalent of an old cotton t-shirt that'd seen hundreds of washings and was full of holes, but was still softer than silk in spite of it.

* * *

The phone rang at 4:23 am, of course. Four in the morning was one of those transitional hours, like eleven in the morning and five in the evening. Eleven was too late to be morning really, too early to be afternoon; five wasn't quite afternoon or evening; and four in the morning was too close to the time she usually woke up anyway for her to bother to go back to sleep and too early for her to even think about getting up.

They say it takes 90 days to either form or break a habit. For three months, Pepper hadn't had to answer a single phone call that didn't occur during regular business hours. She has to grope along the bedside table to locate her phone. By the time she finds it, her voicemail has picked up. Irritated, she flicks her wrist and the screen lights up, displaying a phone number she doesn't recognize.

_Probably a drunk –_ The phone goes off again, the light from the screen hurting her eyes.

"What?" she mumbles into it, her voice just a little sharp. There's dead silence on the other end of the line. "Hello?" Her tone is sharper this time, demanding. If she's going to be robbed of her last half hour of sleep, then she wants to know why…

It occurs to her that there's one person in the world who would still have a very good reason for calling her this early and who might be hesitant to say anything.

_Oh god. Oh god._ "Rhodes? Rhodey, is that you –"

"_Pepper."_

She told herself she was dreaming. For three months she'd done all she could to ignore the echoes of that voice, once so pervasive nearly to the point of irritation. For three months he was a running commentary in the back of her head until she took to playing music nearly as loud as he had. Did. But the level of the music never quite drowned out all the snatches of conversation her brain had stored up without her permission.

"Pepper… Look, I'm sorry. Rhodey told me it was early still over there, and clearly the math isn't beyond me, but I got…impatient."

Twelve weeks of trying to forget her boss's voice, trying to forget Stark's voice…it never even occurred to her to try to forget Tony's voice. She would know the sound of _his_ voice anywhere. And it's so, so very soft, as if he truly regrets waking her up for _any_ reason.

"Tony. Oh my god, _Tony._"


	5. This Is the Way it Is

A/N - Okay, so it's been years since I updated, but I hope that you're all willing to forgive me for that. :) I'm in my second to last term of college, I've working around 25 hours a week, and of course, I'm caught up in all sorts of collaborative fics. Who can blame me when the fandom is so fun and the authors are so awesome? But tonight I have a treat to bring back. 4persephone is out of town, so I'm short a writing partner until she gets internet again which means I'm on my own writing wise, and I've gotten hooked on the Pierces. I blame who wrote an angsty little ficlet based on their song "Three Wishes"...which ended up being an indirect inspiration for this. It's actually an idea I've been toying with for a few months.

Anyway, enough from me, right? And before anyone with a memory that stretches back long enough starts nagging me about Old Dogs, New Tricks, I do have a new chapter that's about halfway written. I'll get it up eventually.

* * *

**100 Prompt Challenge**

**Prompt #89 - Heal**

**

* * *

  
**

_The scent of metal and smoke and overheated male is strong in her nose. Compared to the man inside them, Pepper knows that her arms must seem small…fragile… Unable to contain the emotional fallout in any meaningful way._

_From experience, Pepper knows anyone thinking that would be wrong._

_This wasn't the way it was supposed to have happened, but this is the way it is._

- - - - - - -

It – _this_ – had started with a simple hug after she'd finished patching him up late one afternoon. He'd been face down on the leather massage table that he'd bought to be a makeshift operating table. Her fingers had been only slightly stained with blood, an improvement over past missions. She'd turned away to reach for a towel to wipe her hands on, and had been stopped by the hand that had suddenly appeared on her hip. She'd stepped closer with the gentle pressure that hand exerted only to wind up with Tony's face pressed against her belly and his arms wrapped around her hips and just under her bottom.

- - - - - - -

_The bedroom is nearly endless and yet close and almost constraining in the early evening gloom. No lights have been turned on. There's no reason to light their way half an hour ago. The setting sun had done the job adequately and Pepper had learned not to distract Tony when he needed her. He wasn't at peace about this yet, and was just as likely to send her home if she disturbed him as he got lost in her body as he would be to become desperate._

- - - - - - -

It'd caught her off guard, though not by surprise. Despite the suit, and his self-appointed mission, and even despite his sheer physical strength Tony Stark was just a man. And the burden he shouldered had been becoming heavier and heavier every time he stepped into his suit.

They still had never mentioned that afternoon, even after she became his lover. They didn't speak of any of it at all. The silence they were created in – that they'd been reborn in – was almost sacred. She was maybe the one person who didn't demand that he give answers about his activities. He was the boss and she followed his silence. She didn't want to cause him more pain by forcing him to talk before he was ready… Pepper doesn't know why they never speak of it, just that they don't, and that it'd been that way from the first.

Tony hadn't said anything, maybe because there was nothing _to _say. Maybe he didn't say anything because the words would have been drowned out by the silent screaming making itself heard through the trembling in every muscle in his body. The mental and emotional repercussions had been chasing him for a long time. That afternoon they'd finally caught up, drawing a long moan out of him that she'd felt. His breath had made her belly hot through the layers of her clothes and his pain had made it churn. It'd been another bad mission, one where someone got in the way who shouldn't have, or he hadn't gotten there as quickly as he'd needed to no matter how hard he'd tried.

- - - - - - -

_Yes, desperate is a good word for him. Desperate for forgiveness he won't grant himself, desperate to be close to someone instead of separated from the world by a metal shell, desperate for his body to outrun his mind long enough to let him rest. And always, always he's desperate to know it's HER. His eyes always trained on hers, his lips spilling her name as if to confirm her identity. He doesn't need to explain because Pepper thinks she understands. _

_Even Iron Man needs somewhere to be safe, needs a shelter where he can come apart and trust that someone will take the care needed to assemble him again._

- - - - - - -

Fingers still stained by his blood, she'd carefully settled her fingers on shoulders. They were small against his bulk, almost unnaturally still in the face of his physical turmoil. Whether they'd been hot or cold to his senses…she doesn't know; his skin had been tacky with drying sweat. His hair as she'd held him against her had been coarse…matted and curling wildly.

She'd been able to coax him as far as his bedroom before he started fighting her. He wouldn't lie back in his bed when it was clear that what he needed was to sleep and start healing. No matter what she'd said or what promises she'd made she hadn't been able to convince him to release her.

"Don't. Don't go…" With his face still pressed tight against her ribcage, those had been the only words she'd been able to understand. His arms had been immoveable bands around her waist. He'd gotten so strong that she wondered if he'd even noticed her struggles, or if he had noticed but they become a part of some inner landscape that fed into his refusal to let her go.

- - - - - - -

_She can't catch her breath. Her body is still riding the tide of release, struggling against the transition between weightless pleasure and tired flesh. Tony still stares down at her, his eyes wide; he's still hard and erect inside her, still poised as if to begin moving again._

_Sometimes it's like this. Sometimes he's caught between a need that manifests physically that ultimately has nothing to do with lust. It confuses him, freezes him as he tries to work through the conflict that exists between his brain, his heart, and his cock._

"_It's okay…It's okay, Tony. Shhh…"_

- - - - - - -

She stays. More than that, she kisses him first because seeing him in pain tears her apart. He tries so hard to do the right thing, to restore instead of destroy. In return he faces hard choices, ones she doesn't know if she'd ever be able to make. All her years of standing by his side…well, they don't seem insignificant or wasted. They feel like training, like preparation for this, so that she can be strong enough to hold together a man who's found a way to enhance his own strength past anything a single man should be capable of. Her body becomes the net that catches him when he falls from his great heights. It's not the way she imagined this ever happening on those rare times she'd considered what being his lover would be like…

…but it's right. She just can't stand seeing him in so much pain, pain that she can't heal with bandages or all the comforting words she can think of. He's drained of everything he'd has to give and can't imagine how he's ever going to give more, and she can't stand seeing the emptiness in his eyes because whatever else he is, Tony Stark is never empty.

Staying is her choice and making it puts her at peace.

- - - - - - -

_He doesn't understand. She knows he doesn't because has he pulls out of her body and slumps to the bed at her side, he finally closes his eyes. He tries to shut her out as his eyelashes become spiky with unshed tears. Pepper doesn't let that even slow her down. _

_She shifts in his bed, rolls onto her side and brushes at the wet streaks under his closed eyes with her thumbs. As far as she's concerned it's the equivalent of having him turn his back on her so that she can smooth Neosporin over cuts in his back._

_He thinks he's taking from her things he shouldn't ask for, thinks that he's weak for not being able to stop himself from reaching out to her. Since they don't talk, Pepper can't tell him he's being ridiculous. She compensates by being closer, so that his need to reach for her is all but irrelevant. Being at his side has always been her decision to make._


	6. Pretend

A/N: this all grew out of a central exchange later on in the fic (muffins for whoever can guess what the exchange was), which I thought was a terrific bit of snark and couldnt' possibly be wasted. However, when I originally envisioned the scene, it was post movie, and there was a bit more fluff involved. This take on it surprised me. It's my first pre-movie vignette...or rather, my first pre-movie vignette that sticks strickly to movie canon. My Daddy Tony fic is something else entirely.

Anyway, I thought this was a fun little exercise, and I hope you all enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

* * *

**100 Prompt Challenge**

**Prompt #97 - Pretend**

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Somehow, Tony Stark was capable of making even his worst ideas seem credible.

"Pepper, really. It sounds as if I'm some sort degenerate when you say it that way."

"I'm sure I don't know what you mean, sir. All I did was repeat your original request for clarification."

"I'm sure I didn't use _that_ tone of voice. Com'on, it's not as if you'll be the only woman there –"

"No, just the only one who's fully clothed."

Tony makes an impatient sound and forcefully taps out a quick cadence against the armrest. "It's not as if I'm asking you to go to a donkey show –"

"Tony!"

Her boss winces, rubs his face. "Okay, that was probably out of line –"

"Probably."

"– but the point remains. I need you there to keep me focused on the business at hand. This is the last hold-out we need to convince in order to get full funding for the Jericho project."

"And why can't Rhodes 'help' you with this?"

"Because he's having a hard time working up the requisite enthusiasm as the Jericho is neither a plane nor something can be dropped out of one. Besides, he's set down a moratorium when it comes to visiting these kinds of venues with me. But I'm your boss, so the same can't be said of you."

"Tony…"

"I'm just asking you to help me out here, which is more or less your entire job description. Is that really too much to expect, Pepper?"

God, she hates it when he ruins a perfectly outrageous argument by throwing a hint of logic in at the end. "If you ask me for any dollar bills, I will not only leave, but I'll schedule you for back to back meetings with all three sections of the audit department."

"Ouch. You're vicious when you're thwarted."

"I'm serious, Mr. Stark. I'm only coming along to keep you focused on work."

"And the exotic dancers are only there to keep Hickson distracted enough to be more amenable. You'll see, Potts. This isn't going to be a big deal."

* * *

Three hours, two cigars, five lap dances, one proposition, and uncounted shots of watered-down booze later, Pepper feels like she's in a bad rerun of The Office. Yes, Tony had closed the deal. Unsurprising since he would have kept them there all night if that's what it'd taken to get that handshake. But they're not leaving Chili's here. She's going to have to get this suit dry cleaned to get the scent of smoke out before she can wear it again. And Tony…

All of those shots of watery booze should have been enough to slow him down, but now that he was keyed up with success…

She made a note to make sure the jet was prepared to leave early tomorrow morning. If she sent his luggage down tonight, they might even be halfway back to LA before any unpleasantness had a chance to begin.

"We're going to drop Pepper off at the penthouse, Hap." Tony slides into the backseat with an enviable grace. He watches her with amusement as she follows him in. "Unless I can convince you to join me, Potts. The roulette tables are calling your name."

"I actually prefer the slot machines, Mr. Stark."

"So do I." The lightning fast response has more to do with a faintly veiled innuendo than true agreement. "Really? I had you pegged as a black jack kind of girl."

"The hotel will be fine, Happy." Pepper settles back into her seat and pulls up her inbox on her BlackBerry.

"Still not tempted? How about a high stakes games of seven card stud?"

"No thank you. I think sitting down with a glass of white wine and typing up the pertinent details of your meeting with Mr. Hickson so that you can present them to the Board will be enough to occupy me before going to bed. If we take off by seven, we can be in the office not too much later than usual."

"Sounds thrilling."

Pepper raises an eyebrow at him without looking up from tomorrow afternoon's slate of meetings. "You did classify this as a business trip in your schedule."

"Com'on, Pepper –"

"I think you've cajoled me enough for one day, Mr. Stark."

"That's not why you came along." Tony no longer sounds high spirited. He now sounds suspiciously smug.

"It's not." She doesn't have the energy to deal with his flights of ego at the moment.

"Nope." He draws the word out, making the "p" pop.

"Would you care to explain why I just spent three hours sipping warm Perrier and studiously ignoring the five inch heels that were half a foot from my face?"

"You wear five inch heels."

"Rarely. And when I do, they aren't made of clear acrylic, and they don't light up with every step."

"That'd certainly make it easier to find you in a crowd."

Pepper doesn't dignify that with a reply.

Tony slouches into a corner, arms crossed, an amused smile still teasing his lips.

"You're in love with me, you know."

It's only through extensive training that Pepper doesn't look up at him. She does pause mid-reply to an urgent email (if there were any other kind, she didn't know). "Excuse me?"

"You heard me."

"Maybe those drinks weren't as watered down as I thought."

"You know I'm right."

"Mr. Stark, if I'm in love with you, this is the first I've heard of it. And as you probably won't remember this conversation tomorrow, I'm going to start pretending right now that it never happened."

"Whatever floats your boat, Potts."

Neither of them say much else on the way home.

At the hotel, Pepper gets out of the car, refuses Tony's last attempt to beguile her along with him – "There's other studs in town if the seven card variety isn't your fancy." – and goes straight to her room to wash the reek of stale smoke out of her hair.

Even after two glasses of Sauvignon Blanc, focusing on the reports she was supposed to be writing is nearly impossible. Tony's voice keeps breaking her concentration.

"_You're in love with me, you know."_

Irrelevant. Irrelevant for as long as those words are spoken as if they imply conquest and submission. Irrelevant for as long as they imply a singular rather than an inclusive condition.

She wasn't pretending that Tony had never said those words for his sake, after all. She wasn't pretending ignorance so that they could meet each other's eyes tomorrow and continue on in their current state of platonic friendship…as strange as the friendship might sometimes seem.

No, the pretence as to keep her from aching when two sets of footsteps enter the penthouse later tonight.

It's how she's been managing things for months now, and it's worked out pretty well so far.

When the penthouse door opens noisily at a quarter past midnight, Pepper pulls a spare pillow over her ear, rolls over, and goes back to sleep.

In the morning, Tony Stark was going to be all hers.


	7. Going to the Chapel I

**A/U:** alright, this should be the first in a three part series covering the prompts past, present, and future; all three will revolve around the topic from these three points of view. This first one is most likely to be the most humorous. It takes place a few months after Pepper started working for Tony.

* * *

**100 Prompt Challenge**

**#57 - Past**

**Going to the Chapel I**

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**

"Potts! There you are. I've been searching all over for you."

Pepper sighed heavily and didn't bother opening her eyes. In the past nine months since she'd agreed to Mr. Stark's insane offer of employment she'd become very adept at answering the phone without having to first search for it, and just as familiar with the sound of his voice when he was buzzed.

It was that tone that she could hear now, along with the sounds of loud music and gruff male laughter. Clearly, Mr. Stark was having a good time and generating more evidence that he could play as hard as he worked. If the flight had gone according to plan, he would have arrived in the city only a few hours before. She had seen him off from the small Stark Industries landing strip at four o'clock; as soon as the boarding ramp had been pulled away for take off, she'd pulled her hair loose and had gotten a head start on her own weekend by speeding back into the city for a pedicure and facial.

She should have known that a weekend getaway for Mr. Stark did not equate the same for her.

"Did I wake you? We really need to do something about your anemic social life, Potts. It's only…dear god, is it actually almost three already? Nothing's going to be open."

Pepper couldn't tell if her boss was actually ashamed for calling or just surprised that he'd been having that much fun. As for what wouldn't be open at nearly three in Las Vegas, she really didn't want to know. Because that meant he had plans beyond casinos and clubs (of both the night and strip variety).

"Potts, you have to do something about this."

"Certainly, sir." She hoped her agreement would be mollification enough to get him off the phone. It was unlikely that he would even remember making this call once he hung up.

"Perfect. Then I'll see you in…you can make the drive in less than four hours, can't you? Considering the time traffic shouldn't be an issue –"

"Mr. Stark, it's three in the morning. If you had any sense at all, you'd be in bed too."

"I love it when you talk dirty, Potts. But I need a best man, and you're it."

* * *

She'd called Mr. Hogan in a panic. As the head of Mr. Stark's personal security team the man had been in Las Vegas and so was the one best equipped to keep their boss in lockdown mode until she could arrive. Which, fortunately for her, was just a little under two hours. The words "Tony Stark" and "marriage" produced amazing results, procuring the use of one of the helicopters owned by Stark Industries and a flight straight to the Las Vegas airport.

Pepper spent the entire flight with a queasy stomach as she contemplated the possible fallout from Tony Stark getting a quickie marriage in Las Vegas.

Hogan met her at the airport with the rented limo. Pepper ran over and pounded on one of the tinted windows, unwilling to simply open the door and subject herself to whatever was going on inside.

…which turned out to be Mr. Stark, the prospective bride, and what Pepper could only assume were two of her closest friends, considering the state of undress the entire quartet was in.

"There's my best man!" Stark exclaimed, half hanging out the window, a glass of something alcoholic dangling from his fingers.

"Mr. Stark –"

"I know it's a misnomer, but Obie wouldn't answer his phone and Rhodey just told me I was nuts."

"Mr. Stark, you can't get married –"

"Of course not. That's why I called you. But now you're here and we can get into a chapel, so this is just about a done deal. Alexis has agreed –"

Pepper didn't know which of the backup singers to Stark Raving band was Alexis, and she didn't care. "Tony." She actually gripped his face between both palms to ensure she had his full attention. "You're not getting married tonight."

She was actually surprised by the quickness and severity of his disappointment. "You won't be my best man?" he asked, disconsolate.

"No."

"Why not?"

His face rested heavily in her hands and Pepper had to sigh. "If you call me back tomorrow and still want to get married, I'll be your best man." 'Like hell,' she thought to herself, but then, it was unlikely that he'd even consider marriage once he was sober.

This seemed to cheer him up because he pulled away and said to his adoring fans, "Potts says we have to get married tomorrow –" There was a chorus of disappointed groans. "So tonight we'll have the bachelor shower!" The window to the limo _whirred_ back into place and Pepper rolled her eyes.

* * *

Monday morning there was a jeweler's box sitting in solitary glory on her desk. Underneath was a piece of paper folded in half.

_I thought about buying you a ring to thank you for saving me from myself, but somehow that seemed a little too close to home._

That was all the explanation Pepper ever got for the one carat diamond solitaire earrings and she had the good sense to never ask for another.

* * *

**A/N II: **I noticed that Pepper was wearing diamond solitaire earrings in the film, so this is my take on where they came from. :)


	8. Black

**A/N:** short and sweet. Just enough for a smile. :)

* * *

**100 Prompt Challenge**

**Prompt #4 – Black**

* * *

One moment he's fully consumed by the circuit board in from of him – Dummy _really_ needed some upgrades to his speech recognition processors – and the next he's utterly distracted by a flicker of movement caught by the corner of his eye. The flicker of movement turns out to be a black heel disappearing up the stairs; next to him rests a mug of coffee (steam spiraling into the air from a surface still gently rocking against the sides of the mug) and a Stark Industries sweatshirt (navy blue on grey).

It was cool, he realized.

"How does she do that?" he mutters to himself as he pulls the sweatshirt over his head. "Javis, how did Pepper know I'd need a sweatshirt? Is this some kind of special personal assistant voodoo?"

"I believe Ms. Potts suspected you might need warmer clothing when you called up for some."

"I what?" Tony doesn't remember that at all.

"You requested that Ms. Potts bring you something warmer to wear."

He takes a break from the desk, rolling his head on his neck until he produces several respectable cracks from his spinal column. He lifts the coffee cup to his mouth, takes a sip, then pauses mid-enjoyment.

"Isn't today a holiday, Jarvis?"

"The date is November 27th, the fourth Friday of the month, more commonly known as 'Black Friday', especially for those in the retail sectors. While it is not a national holiday in the truest sense of the term, it is commonly given as a day off following the Thanksgiving holiday, which is celebrated on the fourth Thursday in November in the states, territories and protectorates overseen by the United States government."

"A simple 'yes' would have sufficed," Tony mumbles as he hits the nearest button for the house's communication system. "Ms. Potts, why aren't you out making the best of all the door buster sales with all the other hordes?"

There was a slight pause – Tony imagines Pepper rearranging whatever she's working on so that she can reply. "Because I prefer to run my seasonal errands in civility, Mr. Stark."

"Are you sure? Because it is a holiday today, Pepper, and if you need a new mattress, I'd be more than happy to go shopping with you. It's been awhile since I've bounced on a bed with anyone." He waits for a response, and waits some more. "That'll be all, Ms. Potts."


	9. Growing Older But Not Up

**A/N:** like all great stories, this one found inspiration from multiple sources. The first being the scene in IM2 where Tony and Fury are chatting in his ruined kitchen, and there are the merest hints of grey hair at RDJ's temples, which are a little seductive because one minute they're there and the next they're gone and you want to get up close and personal to check things out for yourself.

The second source – which is true for so many of my fanfic writing adventures – comes from the great Jimmy Buffett. Yes, I am very much a parrothead. Anyway, his song "Growing Older But Not Up" seems very much true of Tony. The chorus says, "I'm growing older but not up, my metabolic rate is pleasantly stuck. Let those winds of time blow over my head, I'd rather die while I'm living than live while I'm dead." I highly recommend you look this song up.

* * *

**Prompt #7 – Grey**

**Growing Older (But Not Up)**

**10.02.10 – 10.05.10**

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There are silver lines where silver lines do not belong.

Tony's face is immobile, impassive, as he stares at his reflection in the mirror. He'd thought he'd found a way around this. Apparently not even his near godlike ability to create new elements, his sheer technical mastery of forces that have defeated lesser men, are enough to stave off his eventual decline.

* * *

"Pepper! _Pep_per-r-r-r!"

Pepper responds to the urgency in Tony's voice without thinking. Almost without thinking. As she runs to the master bath, she does wonder how he'd managed to cut off a hand while shaving. Because if he's using _that_ tone, then he'd better well have managed to cut off something irreplaceable or she's…she's…

"What's wrong?" she demands as she slingshots herself around the open door. There's no blood, no gore, no bones sticking out of flesh. Just Tony's – very fine – backside wrapped in a towel and his horrified face in the mirror as he combs through the hair at his temple with both hands. "What is it?"

"What's _wrong_?" He spins around and points at his hair. "How could you not tell me!" The mixture of panic and dismay that'd been on his face when she'd entered the room fades to a muted sort of awareness as Pepper's toe starts tapping in annoyance.

She can see him process how he must have sounded and what sort of conclusions she might have drawn from his tone.

"I'm sorry?" he tries, his tone indicating that he's still trying to work out the mechanics of apologies, especially the insincere ones. "But how could you have not said anything?"

"What are you sorry for?"

"Pepper –"

"Tony…" He's the one who made her the boss. And sooner or later he'll remember that she actually has _more_ control over which meetings he does and does not attend…and that she leans towards the former when he panics her for no good reason.

"I'm sorry you think I'm capable of slitting my throat with an electric razor. I'm trying to have a serious conversation here, Pepper."

He's so serious, and so earnest, that Pepper can't quite stifle her soft sound of amusement. He does that to her, shifts her mood suddenly and unpredictably.

She still hasn't gotten used to how living with Tony is like the opposite of gaining perspective. Flying into war zones and natural disasters barely rates a 1 or 2 on his panic meter, but something so small that she can't even see it from across the room has him calling for moral support.

From the top of his lungs.

"What's wrong, Tony?"

He points at her, eyes narrowed and lips pouty. "Now you're just humoring me…but I'll take what I can get. Come here." He grabs her hand and drags her over to the mirror where the light is stronger. "See?"

She sees his hair. Dark, dry, styled. "You used too much gel? No, I don't see. What am I supposed to see –"

"This!" The tips of his fingers comb over the fine hairs at his temple, the ones that have started turning silver in the last few months. The ones she secretly admires every time she thinks he's not paying attention.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Pepper lies, keeping her expression bland. Really, he'd called her up here over a few silver strands in his otherwise enviably lush and dark head of hair?

_Vanity, thy name is Stark._

"Iron Man does not have grey hair, Pepper!" Tony thunders, giving up on any chance of sympathy from his girlfriend. Doesn't she realize that's part of the role?

"You're right. Iron Man is bald."

"Ha-ha. Buy me some Just For Men while you're out today."

"Pardon me?"

"Fine, tell the new you to buy me some Just For Men. Though, I'd think you'd be a lot more accommodating to your _boyfriend_, Potts."

"That's not what I… You're not dying your hair, Tony."

He turns away from the mirror, a betrayed look on his face. "You can't honestly tell me –"

"– That I find that hint of maturity and wisdom incredibly sexy and distracting? Because I think I just did."

Tony's mouth opens and closes for a few seconds of blessed silence as he tried to decide what to make of _that_ confession. Unfortunately, he chooses to get huffy instead of turned on. "So you _have_ noticed. I'm not sure I can forgive you for this, Potts. You're supposed to make sure I'm always looking my best – or at least that's what you said when you threw away all my comfortable shop clothes. How long has this been an issue?"

"When did I notice?" She shrugs. "Remember the last mission you went on before the Expo opened?"

"That was over six weeks ago!"

"For god's sake, Tony. Stop making mountains out of mole hills." She reaches out for the first time and stokes the hair in question herself. "You're telling me you can live with a hole in your chest, but a few silver hairs –"

"_Grey_," he interrupts and emphasizes. "Besides, there's nothing more I can do about the reactor right now. I can obliterate these suckers with a thorough application of ammonia and peroxide."

Pepper blinks, gauging his level of commitment. He's being remarkably hard to distract, which kind of worries her.

"I'm not decrepit, Pepper."

_Decrepit?_ she wonders as she opens her mouth to agree. "Of course you're not –"

"So just because a few pansy hair follicles have decided to give up the ghost doesn't mean I have to wander around looking like I've got one foot in the grave –"

His rant continues, but Pepper stops paying attention because she gets it now. Despite his protests, she suspects this has nothing to do with grey hair in and of itself (though she doesn't doubt his ego might be taking it hard) but rather has everything to do with having spent months in a body that felt like it was dying by increments. This has to do with the fact that it was only last week that he put away the Aleve and the heating pads for good and stopped getting out of bed with a wince and a stooped spine. This has to do with his belief in his new found lease on life perhaps being not as firm as he's pretended, and maybe a little – just a miniscule chance – that he's starting to buy in to his own press.

The invincible Iron Man indeed.

Well, he always has had a healthy ego.

It's his ego she applies to now in an attempt to stop the runaway train that's becoming his threats to color his hair.

"Grey hair hasn't hurt George Clooney's career," Pepper points out, interrupting Tony's declaration that he'd rather shave himself bald as an egg than go grey. "Or Anderson Cooper's. Additionally, I don't think I've ever heard the term 'silver fox' used negatively."

"Stop trying to make me feel better, Potts."  
Tony might be grumbling, but he's watching her with expectant eyes. She still finds herself a little surprised whenever she catches that hungry look, but it's becoming easier to respond to it.

"I'm not old."

"I know. That's why I gave up on my schemes to marry you and inherit your billions years ago."

She startles a laugh out of him, dislodging enough of his tension that he reaches for her, wrapping his arms around her waist and resting his chin on her shoulder.

She's fairly certain he's still glaring at his reflection in the mirror.

"I'm _not_ old," he reiterates.

"Do you think I don't know that?" Pepper turns her head and nuzzles the tip of her nose against his ear. "Tony, you are more vital and energetic than anyone else I know, with reserves of stamina and endurance that would shame men half your age."

His response is immediate and visceral – and entirely physical – which she supposes only proves her point.

"Are you bribing me, Potts? You only talk sexy when you're after something."

"For the record, I was talking about your marathon shop jags."

"Sure you were. Well don't stop. Keep extolling the many forms in which my manly prowess presents itself."

"What I'm saying, is that you shouldn't be surprised that your hair can't keep up with you when the rest of us struggle with the same thing." He pulls away and Pepper allows herself a mental sigh of relief when he no longer looks upset.

"I've never noticed you struggling to keep up on me. Oops, did I say 'on,' because I meant –"

Pepper covers his mouth with two fingers; their faces are so close that she can't help but meet his eyes. There's a dark twinkle in them, the one that's tempting and inviting for all the right reasons and at all the wrong times.

"Silver, huh?" Tony thinks about this. Silver is desirable, it's lustrous and conducts heat and electricity better than any other metal on the periodic table and is grouped with all the other transition elements. Elements known for being able to stand heat better than most and their magnetic qualities.

He suppose it fits. He's a man in transition after all, and he definitely knows a few things about conducting – very _specific_ kinds of – heat and electricity, and there's definitely a magnetic attraction between he and Pepper. In fact, he'd like to act on that attraction at the first possible chance.

"Well, I suppose if _you_ like it…"

She smiles. "No more talk about hair dye or feet in graves, okay? I kinda like having you _and_ your…hmm, experience around. I think I could get used to it."

"Want to get used to it right now? In bed?"

"Yes, thank you, I did know what you meant." It's a tempting offer – more than she lets on – but she's has her own years of experience behind her. So she gently turns him down and refocuses his passion towards an appropriate daylight pursuit…

…and hopes he never finds her standing in front of the mirror some morning as she plucks out her own grey hairs. After all, he could claim some sort of twisted ownership since he's caused every single one of them. And really, she's too young to put up with her grey hairs.


	10. Stableish The Only Constant is Change

**A/N: **new ficlet! I know I've been ignoring my writing horribly in the last few months but life's been full. Hopefully this is just the first of many pages to come. Partially inspired by a prompt on the LJ community it's_always_been, it's also partially inspired by the prompt listed from the Pepperony 100 challenge.

I hope you enjoy.

* * *

**Prompt #24 – Kiss**

**Stable-ish (The Only Constant is Change)**

* * *

One perfect, heart-pounding kiss buys Tony twenty-four hours of total bliss before tossing him head first into a life that is…changed. Looking back he figures he only got _that_ long because A) Pepper, despite her claims of wanting to once again be the power behind the throne instead of the "royal ass" sitting on it (her words, not his), though she kinda had a point, but then he'd never seen the point of false conviviality. People were going to like him or they weren't and all the feigned interest in the world about children/pets/vacations/medical troubles in the world wasn't going to change that, just put a pretty face on it…

Anyway, Tony figures the only reason he experienced that single perfect day was because Pepper stayed on the phone with lawyers and publicists, senatorial aides, and all of the Joint Chiefs she could reach at the late hour. All of which Pepper informed him of the next afternoon before she claimed a turn in the bed he'd just rolled out of after a sixteen hour power nap.

So, to recap: fantastic kiss, first perfect day in longer than he can remember, he spent hours sleeping and having _very_ good dreams about Pepper when he dreamed at all; Pepper did all the work she claimed to not want and was too tired to blast him for it; Pepper slept in his bed while he was awake and able to watch her.

It really was…fantastic.

* * *

The troubles start the next day, once they're both something other than exhausted. That's when they have the first argument. It doesn't go well. In the past he and Pepper have had…disagreements. Loud, heated disagreements. But usually over things with no lasting personal importance. Did he or didn't he have personal boundary issues? Was she or wasn't she obsessive compulsive? Who was the better athlete – and how can you have anyone left to compare if you're going to rule out anyone who's been arrested, busted for drug abuse, or accused of sexual improprieties?

The argument they have on their first day out from the rooftop kiss is neither frivolous or impersonal. She's frustrated that he didn't mention he was dying while he was still dying. He tries to explain the ways that he _tried_ to tell her. She says it's not enough – that promotions, and omelettes, and Venice don't matter because he never actually said the words. He asks her how he could say the words when she'd been copping a corporate sized attitude and holding a little (public) drunkenness against him when she'd never punished him so ruthlessly for it before – and hey, didn't _that_ sound more than just a little hypocritical –

He has to shout the last words after her when she storms out of the room.

They make up the next day after he apologizes (he's not really sure what he's apologizing for because he suspects they're both right, but hey, it works) and she admits that she _had_ been punishing him but not for unacceptable levels of (public) drunkenness and reckless destruction. She'd felt like he'd been pushing her away ever since she'd turned down his botched attempt at asking her out and she'd gotten tired of trying to push her way back into places she obviously wasn't wanted. His birthday had just been the last, obnoxious, hurtful straw. She'd given up. A not-apology accompanied by the proof of just how little he sometimes paid attention to her hadn't even started to cool her temper.

They make up. They kiss – a lot – and relax around other. Pepper (who'd spent more hours on her phone talking to other people for his sake) falls asleep on his shoulder during the flight home. As far as concocting fantasies go, this is ten times better than simply watching her sleep (not to mention ten times less creepy), and he's horny –

– and what had she meant by "botched attempt"?

She doesn't spend the night, which gives Tony a solid ten hours to A) start the 'bots machining new parts for the suit while he and Jarvis get to work on redesigning the breastplate and suit interface for his new chest RT piece, and B) brood that Pepper would think – much less tell him – that he'd failed at something when it comes to the ladies.

When he mentions this to Pepper (right in the middle of her soliloquy on how he'd been not dying for only three days and how it won't kill him to take care of himself – not that he'd know) she snipes back, asking how he would know what worked on "the ladies" when dumb blondes and attention whores accounted for most of his "triumphs."

Which really gets to him because it makes him sound predatory, which he's not (and really, doesn't he get enough blame for the things he actually is?).

Just because he doesn't brag about it a lot doesn't mean he's not aware if his own _exceptional_ level of intelligence. Unless it was some kind if drunken quickie in the men's room or his car, vacant, vain and dumb didn't appeal to him. There was no challenge, and without a challenge there's no reward, and without a reward there's nothing but boredom.

Besides, if a woman can't keep up with him verbally, she'd never manage it in the bedroom.

He doesn't tell her that. Instead he tells her he hadn't exactly been sticking to a diet of bimbos, that a few of the women had even been just as smart as her.

This time it's Pepper yelling over her shoulder as she leaves. She shouts, "And those relationships have been _so_ successful, haven't they?"

* * *

No one apologizes for this fight. Tony doesn't because he sees no reason why Pepper has the right to hold his past against him _now_, especially when she'd been there every step of the way, greasing his revolving bedroom door. What illusions about him could she possibly have left at this point?

Pepper doesn't apologize because…

He's isn't actually sure why she doesn't apologize. After a day of tense, impersonal exchanges between them (during which Pepper changes the subject every time he tries to find out why they seem to be fighting) she leaves. Oh, it's nothing dramatic, just a planned trip for the great, white North.

Oregon has snow, doesn't it?

Anyway, Pepper flies up to Corvallis to meet with the fine folks from CH2M Hill about collaborating on a green energy bid in Eastern Japan. He knows enough details to be excited about the engineering and bored by the logistics. He's even willing to admit that the silence between them is worth not having to talk with the facilities and infrastructure people. Then the afternoon she's due back, he calls himself away to help dig civilians out of some Chilean mudslides.

He comes back smeared in mud and with every joint in his suit clogged with heavy clay. As the suit comes apart it leaves tracks of mud across his neoprene pressure suit. His neck and shoulders ache from holding them his head in one position for so long and his feet and hands are practically numb from the vibrations of the propulsion RTs. He's tired, sore, thirsty, hungry…par for the course after a mission, really. What he hadn't expected to be was _alone_. There's no Pepper in sight, not even a sandwich or a bottle of water waiting for him.

"Jarvis, where's Pepper?" This was the first time since he became Iron Man that Pepper isn't waiting up for him to come in from a late night – and didn't _that_ speak volumes about his social life lately.

"Ms. Potts is not on the property."

"Well, that's half an answer," Tony grumbles to himself as he half limps/half stumbles across the garage to the small kitchenette. If he doesn't get something to drink _now_…

After sucking back two bottles of water with a brand name he can't pronounce or even imagine asking anyone to buy, he starts stripping out of the neoprene. "Jarvis, get Pepper on the phone. I don't care what you tell her, just get her here. Now."

She arrives an hour and a half later, furious, hair a sunset halo around her pale face and dressed more casually than he's seen her in forever. Spluttering something about "concussions," "stubborn ass" and "Hooters girls" she stutters to a stop in the middle of shop when instead of finding whatever it was she expected she discovers him hard at work pulling the guts of the suit apart and tackling the delicate cleaning that he can't trust to the 'bots.

"You had Jarvis _lie to me!_" She's cleaned herself up for the night; her face is free of all traces of makeup; without layers of mascara and eye-liner, Pepper's eyes are a paler blue than he recalls. In dark grey yoga pants and a loose blue-grey tank top, she looks comfortable (if furious) and if he's honest (which there's no point not to be) she looks like a woman ready to be tumbled into a unmade bed, slowly and so softly.

"Actually, I told Jarvis to tell you whatever would get you here. It's not our fault he had to lie to do that." (Absently Tony wonders if teaching a computer to lie is a good thing or a bad thing and if he cares either way because it's actually pretty damn impressive.) He towels his hands dry, managing to wipe away at least most of the mud. His palms are hot and his fingers tense as if he's already running them up her bare sides, pushing her top up with his wrists as they glide higher and higher…

"Stop undressing me with your eyes! I'm trying to talk to you!"

"Trying? You're succeeding, and at an impressive volume, and without me paying attention."

"Tony!"

"What?" He finally pulls his mind away from the internal debate about whether or not she's wearing a bra and focuses on the conversation that's been postponed since she last yelled at him. "Why are you mad at me?"

"I told you, you made Jarvis lie –"

"No I didn't. And incidentally, that isn't what I'm talking about."

Her lips purse and her toe taps in an uneven rhythm he sees more than hears; her bare toes flex against her bright pink plastic flip flops. It's nowhere near as intimidating as the Italian leather masterpieces she normally wears.

"You don't want to have this conversation." Pepper's voice is flat.

"I'm an adult now, Potts. I hear that means doing things you'd rather not."

Her eyes narrow, the pucker of her lips growing tighter as she studies him. "Fine. This isn't going to work."

She can't possibly mean what it sounds like she means. He actually glances around for a pair of sunglasses so Pepper won't be able to see how devastating her casual words are. There are plenty of welding goggles but no sunglasses. He wonders if she'd get _more_ upset if he started welding something.

Probably. He might be new to this concept of a long term romantic relationship, but he knows all about Pepper.

That thought calms him a little. He does know Pepper. And this is Pepper trying to strong-arm him into something she thinks he won't like.

He fires up the tiny water pick he'd been using to detail the mud out of the suit and pulls his clear goggles back down over his face. "No." He agrees with her statement, disagrees with her meaning, settling into the pattern of so many of their disagreements.

"Tony, are you listening to me?"

"What? Yeah. Us fighting and you refusing to talk about it? I agree."

"That's not what I mean."

"I know what you mean, I just can't figure out how you came to your conclusion."

"We do nothing but fight –"

"You've been gone the last three days and I didn't want our first time to be over the phone –"

" – will you please take this seriously –"

"I take sex very seriously."

"Oh, _please_. The way you're serious about every girl you're with until you're not anymore?"

"_You_ haven't had a serious relationship since you started working for me."

She looks like she's about to storm out. It's a look he's gotten familiar with in the last week. And while it's encouraging that she keeps coming back (mostly on her own), he'd prefer to cut to the chase this time.

He's still recovering from being mostly-almost-dead after all.

"Jarvis, lock the shop down and go to sleep."

"Sir, may I suggest –"

"No. You know, Potts, it's not fair to hold my past – or lack of one – against me. And if you want to, it's a knife that cuts both ways."

The workshop is quiet after that, just he and Pepper locked in the muted light of the garage. He can hear her furious breathing.

They start to speak at the same time.

"You're acting childish –"

"_You're_ the one that keeps storming out –"

" – Tony. I don't know what you think you're going to prove –"

" – so it's not as if you're the exemplar of maturity at the moment –"

"Tony!"

"Tell me I'm wrong!"

Pepper's mouth snaps shut and once again only the sound of agitated breathing fills the cavernous space.

"Tell me I'm wrong." Tony repeats himself softly as he pushes away from his workstation and walks towards her. "Tell me _this_ is wrong." Pepper's feet shuffle in place and her eyes dart around as if looking for escape, but she stays put and eventually looks at him again.

Her eyes are bright in the dim room. He wonders if she's going to cry.

He wonders if that would be a good thing or a bad thing.

"So what if I don't have any 'long-term' experience with anyone else. I've got it with you." He's finally close enough to slide his hands around her waist, able to touch the warm, giving softness of her body. "I think you're making this harder than it needs to be."

"That's what she said," Pepper grumbles under her breath, so quietly he almost misses it.

When he realizes what she said, Tony laughs. Loudly. Pepper finding her humor means the worst is over.

"Come on." He pulls her closer, up tight against his body and she comes (mostly) willingly. "You know how to manage me. In fact, you could manage me a lot more if –"

She shuts him up with a kiss before he can offer to give her old job back. Right now she's neither CEO nor assistant. As far as he can tell she's essentially doing whatever the hell she wants.

Which includes the way she's kissing him. Pepper's not brash the way he is, and she's not forceful the way he knows she can be. If anything he'd say she's luxuriating in being close to him.

When Pepper finally pulls away they both take their time opening their eyes again. "Weird yet?"

"No," Pepper sighs. "Maybe that's the strangest part. Weren't we just arguing?"

"We're always just arguing." She doesn't step back, doesn't try to pull away, so Tony leans in and presses his lips against the side of her neck.

"Not like this," she murmurs.

"So we're expanding our parameters." He waits for her to make another that's what she said joke, but clearly she's too distracted. "We're in flux. It's going to take time for things to stabilize again."

"Again?" She nips at his jaw, inadvertently setting every nerve in his body ablaze. At least he hopes it was inadvertent. If she knows that much about his body already, he's in trouble.

"Fine. Then it'll take time for us to regain our thermodynamic equilibrium. Satisfied?" He explores the velvety skin behind her ear, nuzzling and brushing his lips back and forth.

"Not yet."

The breathless tone of her voice makes his hands tighten on her hips.

"Potts. I have an important question that I need you to answer honestly. Are you wearing a bra?"

"It doesn't sound like me to go without…"

"Well, that's half an answer." He can't help it. The unknown has always called to him. He's a man who needs answers to the important questions in life. His hands slide around to her back, slip under her top, and then start to slide upwards.

Pepper leans far enough back to see his face; she raises a single eyebrow in challenge, daring him to comment. Any comment really.

"You weren't here when I got home. Pepper, I'm a wounded hero. I need a massage."

"Oh you do, do you?" Pepper leans in to nip the other side of his jaw.

"Desperately." His hands slide South down her body. Having an answer to the bra question, he needs to know whether she's wearing anything under the slinky yoga pants. What if it's a different answer than to the bra question?

"I'm not sure that's in my job description anymore, Mr. Stark."

"Job description? Are we pretending you don't do whatever you want?"

"Excellent point." Pepper's hands start their own gentle exploration. "Are you actually hurt or just sore from the flight?"

"Which one is going to make you stay?"

"I thought I did whatever I want."

"Want me?"

Pepper's answering smile is electrifying.

* * *

Turns out she did.

And it was…fantastic.


	11. Imitation, Flattery

A/N: Once again, I've got a vignette that ran away from me a little. The original concept was from a picture of Tony and Pepper sitting in his weight room while Natalie put the smack down on Happy. One of the things I noticed the first time I saw the movie was that Pepper's hair matched the walls. Then through the challenges over at "It's Always Been" I got to see lots of versions of comic!Pepper, including lots of hair cuts. The last part of this fic was the question "Why does Pepper's hair match the walls?" which led me to the nature of creativity and inspiration. So here's the fic.

* * *

**Prompt #8 – Brown**

**Imitation = Flattery**

* * *

It's not a conscious thing on Tony's part. Engineering takes planning, creation just happens. Much of what he does is a blend of planning and inspiration drawn from…anything. Archimedes' lever, DaVinci's war machines, the chandelier that hangs over his mother's dining room table, the curves of a classic sports car, the arc of a pop fly, the rate at which the wake left by a naval destroyer dissipated…

The first things Tony designs after his parents die are…toys. Irrelevant playthings that he discards almost as soon as he finishes them. He stalls out on his progress with his first antonymous robot, leaving Dummy frozen in time, development halted at the state it'd been in when Tony had gotten the news.

Obadiah is the one to pull Tony out of his stupor. He doesn't lecture about the mess, the evidence of underage drinking and recreational drugs, or the several different stereos blasting several different bands from multiple areas of the house. He just drops in one afternoon with a couple of pizzas, a six pack of craft-brewed beer, and a faulty algorithm for predicting the correct fuel to weight ratio for a new warhead meant to carry a smaller payload while delivering a greater blast radius.

Tony sees through it. He's…parentless, not stupid. He eats the pizza, drinks the beer, and makes no promises.

A week later Tony delivers the corrected equations to Obie along with schematics that not only improved several structural problems he'd foreseen, but change the shape of the missile entirely.

He doesn't see the schematics the way Obadiah sees them. Doesn't see the way the missile borrowed lines and forms from the B-29 bombers Howard Stark had rolled out of his plants in an effort to bring WWII to an end. The source of Tony's influence was as clear as fingerprints pressed into the fins and nose of the missile.

Obadiah sees, recognizes, and makes a rapid decision that will lessen an influence that was clearly stronger than he'd realized.

"I've been thinking, Tony, that what you need is a change in scenery. We're refitting the site outside LA for this new line. Or at least we were." He waves the new plans around like a white flag. "Maybe you should come out in case you have any more…insights."

Tony shrugs. Yeah, he feels a little like he's living in a mausoleum, which is the reason behind all the stereos. And people he barely knows keep dropping by with casseroles he's not going to eat and to express condolences when he's the least prepared for them…

Well, a change in scenery isn't the worst idea he's ever heard.

* * *

Virginia Potts graduates from Fresno State with a bachelors in International Business studies and a masters in Corporate Accounting. Her boyfriend – ex-boyfriend – disappears the day after graduation, taking with him the job she'd applied and interviewed for because she was passionate about it and for which _he'd_ done the same because he'd wanted to "cover his bases." Her roommates are all packed up to return to their hometowns, leaving her responsible for a rent she'll no longer be able to pay on her own.

Her first job after college is as a receptionist for a small law office. She sticks around long enough to whip their filing system into shape and realize that this job isn't going to lead anywhere (a conclusion she comes to after observing and enduring her boss's attitude). Even if it did pay the bills, Virginia has things she wanted to do with her life she would never accomplish if she stayed here.

She quits, moves into an attic room in a historic house that has great light (and a lingering scent of mothballs that she can't dispel no matter what she tries), and visits the nearest hair salon. It's time to get rid of the last vestiges of the college student she'd been. She colors her hair back to a strawberry blond from the platinum hue she'd been sporting, chops off six inches, and heavily layers what's left.

Two weeks later, she gets a job with a company called Stark Industries as a junior accountant. She spends a lot of time processing receipts, invoices, and traveling expenses. It may not be her dream job, but at least it has the chance for advancement.

It's a start.

* * *

Tony is _not_ having a good day. Actually he's not having the best month, but today he's hung over, which compounds his other problems. Problems Obie has just finished pointing out in his roundabout, overly jovial way.

"Look, it's no big deal, Obie. You and I know I'm behind schedule, but to everyone else I'm several months ahead. And really, isn't perception more important than reality?"

"You mean like the perception that your last two assistants have quit because of professional differences?" Obadiah carries his empty tumbler over to the sideboard. "Just a thought, son, but maybe you should stop hiring _personal_ assistants and look for an impersonal one."

"Yeah, yeah." Tony's heard a variation of this talk a million times before. And certainly conducting affairs with his assistants has been less than successful to date. They all get possessive towards the end and start objecting when they find out about the other women. Usually the ones they find in his bed.

Obie leaves, and Tony closes the door after him, flopping down on the sofa in the corner of his office. _God_, his head hurts. He closes his eyes, hoping that a nap will make the worst of the hang over disappear…

An undetermined amount of time later, Tony wakes up, his headache suddenly raging. Outside his office, there is a woman – a loud, strident woman – arguably having a worse day than he is.

And who is determined to protest it. At ear shattering levels.

Tony groans and rolls off the sofa. He yanks his tie loose (looser), runs a hand through his hair, and toes off his shoes. Marginally more comfortable, he goes to his office doors and throws them open.

A trio of people – two security guards and a pretty redhead with _fantastic_ legs – pause. Momentarily, on the part of the redhead. She brushes past the two guards and his scandalized secretary and heads straight towards him. She's pissed. He finds her attitude pretty ballsy.

He likes it.

"Mr. Stark."

"Yeah. What's _your_ name, beau–"

"You need to see this."

The way she ignores his charm is new, fresh. Intriguing. The way she shoves a handful of paper under his nose is less so.

"Mr. Stark?"

He waves down the security guards. "Stand down. I got this." The woman is already pushing past him into his office. "Please, make yourself comfortable, Ms…?"

"Potts." She gives him the name grudgingly.

"Potts. Lovely. Is there a first name to go with that?"

"Mr. Stark, I've already been fired over this, so I've moved beyond the polite chit-chat phase. Could you please just look at these figures?"

"Wow. Sounds like you've had an exciting day." Tony eases into the chair behind his desk and tries to get his eyes to focus.

"You have no idea." She mutters something about job hunting underneath her breath.

Tony glances at her, amused. She's not at all intimidated, or, apparently, infatuated. It's novel.

Eyes finally working in cooperation, Tony looks over the sheet of figures in front of him. They look familiar. He frowns, flips to the first page. They're for the project he's ahead/behind on. He flips back to the page he'd originally been handed. Flips to the last page. And back.

"This is wrong."

"That's what I said." Ms. Potts sounds…disgruntled. Not nearly as elated as a fired employee should sound after catching a several million dollar mistake made by her former employer.

"How much is the Stark Industries severance package worth these days?" he asks as he makes corrections in the margin of the page.

"You're the boss. Shouldn't you know that?"

She's irritated. Still gorgeous though. "I'm the boss. I've never been fired," Tony counters, throwing a grin in for good measure before he hands the papers back to her. "There's a desk and a computer terminal outside the door where you can make these corrections."

Ms. Potts doesn't take the proffered papers, and he has the admire her backbone.

"I'm _fired_, Mr. Stark." She speaks to him as if he's simpleminded. Or hung over.

"Wow. You're a regular pepper pot, as Granny Rhodes would say –"

"Who's Granny Rhodes?"

"Not important right now. You _were_ fired. And now I'm hiring you. I have to imagine whatever the severance package is, it's not enough to live on indefinitely. Especially not with your taste in shoes, Ms. Potts…" Tony takes a moment to admire the stilettos adoring her feet.

She folds her legs to the side of her chair so he has a harder time seeing them. The look on her face assures him she thinks he's crazy. "I assure you, Mr. Stark, I'm overqualified to work as your secretary."

"Yeah? Why don't you let me be the judge of that."

"Mr. Stark, I have two degrees –"

"In what?" Tony leans back in his chair and swivels as far away from the light as possible.

"International Business and Corporate Accounting –"

"Really?" That sounds promising. "You're right. You're totally overqualified. Good thing I don't need another secretary. I have an entire pool of them, in fact."

"Is that a literal or metaphorical pool?"

"Depends on the day and time." He grins at the disapproving look on her face. "Ms. Potts, I actually find myself in need of an…executive assistant."

"If I'm overqualified to be a secretary, then I'm certainly overqualified to fetch your coffee and walk your dogs."

"Don't have any dogs. For you I'd be willing to hand over duties that are a bit more…cognitively demanding."

"No."

"No?"

"I don't know where you get your information from, but you're not as discrete as you think you are. I'm not looking to move up the corporate ladder by spending time on my back."

"See. _That_ is why I want to hire you. The degrees are helpful, but I'm more interested in your initiative, dedication, honesty, and confidence." The physical package is nothing to pass over either. Nor was the way Ms. Potts was blushing at his straight forward compliments. "I won't lie; I've got a soft spot for redheaded damsels in distress." Her chin comes up, the motion as blatant as a line in the sand. "You don't take no for an answer and you're already been good for business."

"Are you drunk?"

"Hungover, actually. The position pays at least…three times what you were making and has much better benefits, I'm sure. It also comes with twice the workload, but it can't be all puppy dogs and rainbows. Do you need time? I hear some women need time to make up their minds –"

"What are the responsibilities?"

Satisfied that he's going to get the answer he wants, Tony shrugs. "Don't know yet. Since you refuse to get my coffee I'll have to come up with something else."

Ms. Potts stares him down, obviously trying to decide whether or not he's worth the risk.

"Four times the salary and nothing's official until I see a job description." She grabs the papers off his desk. "I'll review these changes and make the necessary corrections so that you can draft one."

The next day, as Pepper – she has freckles, a fiery attitude, and enough spunk to keep up with him – straightens up the blizzard of paperwork her predecessor had left behind in her office, Tony gets back to work.

* * *

The trouble starts two months after she's hired. Virginia "Pepper" Potts loses her boss.

It's exactly as impossible as it sounds. Tony Stark goes nowhere without a posse; posses are noisy, and don't exactly disappear into a crowd. She herself keeps his schedule tracked in fifteen minute blocks, and even if she didn't, not a day has passed since Mr. Stark hired her that he hasn't interrupted her at least five times a day for…inconsequentials.

Pepper suspects he enjoyed having someone – an actual living, breathing person – in his life that doesn't fawn over him. Even Mr. Stane can be ingratiating when there's something he wants from Tony.

Two months isn't a long time, but considering how closely they've worked, how many hours she's put in, she's learned a few things about her erstwhile employer/charge. While he is as spoiled and entitled as she expected him to be (only child, older parents, filthy rich, insanely intelligent…physically gorgeous), he's also more than expensive hair gel and swagger. He's capable of being very…sweet. Like a prepubescent boy with a slightly inappropriate crush on his teacher.

Pepper is surprised by how much she actually enjoys her new profession. Now that she's got the basic ropes of the job down, she can start tailoring it to fit into the idiosyncrasies of her employer.

If she could only _find_ him.

Because she doesn't know what else to do, Pepper calls Mr. Stane. She hates asking for his help because he's only now stopped looking at her as if she's a momentary distraction for Tony. It flusters her, because Mr. Stane kinda reminds her of her mother's oldest brother; the need for approval is instinctive and completely inappropriate in this setting.

Obadiah tells her to be patient (which she is, she hasn't filed a missing persons report yet), that this coming weekend is particularly rough because it marked ten years since Tony's parents had died (which she knows because she's finally caught up on forty years' worth of press clippings), and that Tony will surface when he wants to be found.

He tells her to relax and enjoy her time off.

And he's serious.

Tony is incommunicado, he left behind his chauffeur/bodyguard, and he didn't even leave her a note about where he was going.

She's not going to "relax."

Pepper drives home with a briefcase full of work and Tony's schedule book front and center. She might as well start rescheduling his appointments for Monday and Tuesday on the assumption that he'll be in no state to work in a corporate setting. She's halfway home when she drives past a salon that she would normally dismiss as too expensive.

Not today.

Pepper leaves the salon with a new A-line bob colored a rich auburn with garnet highlights, and a cleared schedule thanks to her BlackBerry. Feeling marginally more in control, she continues home and calmly finishes her work.

Tony calls her two days later and tells him to come get him.

Actually, his exact words are, "Get down here and bring bail money with you. Get my car out of the impound first."

Considering he's in a Tijuana drunk tank, his concern for his vehicle is legitimate. He took the Shelby and the Cobra is an original.

Pepper is…_not_…happy. She gathers the necessary money, a few changes of clothing, and Mr. Hogan. She's already arranged for the Shelby to be shipped home once she pays the fine for illegally parking in the middle of a major thoroughfare.

All too soon she's facing down her boss, who looks like he's been dragged through several back alleys before being left to sweat out what ails him in a cell that is in severe need of an AC unit.

Tony doesn't look at her. He has an arm thrown over his eyes and he's lying down facing away from her.

"Potts. Tell me you brought some Advil and soda crackers with you." When she doesn't answer he forces himself into a seated position. "You smell great, Potts. Better than anything else in here."

He's pale, looking more wrung out than she's ever seen him – considering he'd been suffering from a hangover when he'd hired her, she feels like she has some experience judging his physical status on the Stark Drunk-O-Meter. He's pale, which emphasizes the dark circles under his eyes, and his face is covered in sweat. He's rumpled, disheveled, and empty of his usual sparkling energy. Not only does he look like hell, but he seems disconnected from the space around him, including her.

It's not an observation she can make, especially to Tony. In spite of how close it feels they've come, they don't relate to each other…openly. They are far more oblique than that.

Keeping that in mind, Pepper keeps her gaze on him level and as merciless as she can. "Tijuana? Really? Isn't that a little cliché? You didn't ask the bartender to leave the ice out of your drinks, did you? I'll assume you didn't drink the water, if only because it wasn't alcoholic."

Her boss stares at her for several moments before he starts to laugh weakly. Some of the numbness she'd perceived starts to dissipate, like he's reintegrating into his surroundings.

"I had other things on my mind," he agrees. "Next time I'll try to be more original."

She gets him back across the border as far north as San Diego before Tony pleads for mercy. Something about being motion sick. Pepper checks them into a hotel that has a drug store around the corner and gets him settled in wordlessly.

Tony is the one to break the silence (he normally is) once he swallows a handful of pills that Pepper's gathered to cure what ails him.

"You must thank your boss is pretty stupid, huh?"

Pepper keeps herself from responding visibly, and has long since learned how to keep her voice modulated when he tests her. "I think…my boss needs a shower." She can see he both expects something from her and dreads hearing it.

As worried as she'd been about what he was getting up to out of her supervision, Pepper can't bring herself to start in on him when he seems so frail. See, her parents are gone too. Long gone. Her grandmother had wrestled custody away from them when Pepper had been a toddler. As much as Grams had loved her, there was still a hollow in her that was meant to be filled with a parent's love.

It's something else she can't say to him. He won't want her understanding, not now. He hasn't even admitted to her the reason for his South of the Boarder binge. And he won't. He's a male – discussing his feelings isn't something he does. Ever. And he is a constant source of surprise.

"That's it? Not even one curse word? If you're in the mood to pity me, Potts, the hospitality team did turn down the sheets, and –"

"Your suitcase is on your bed. With toiletries. And clean clothes. Will that be everything, Mr. Stark, or would you like a rundown of your most urgent messages?"

"Ahh…" Tony smears a hand across his eyes. "Oh, _god_, no. That will be all, Ms. Potts." He pries himself out of his chair. "You've got a mean streak. I like it."

Pepper glances down to hide a smile, then turns to leave.

"Oh, hey, Potts. Did you do something different to your hair or am I still drunk? I like it, so if it turns out I'm still intoxicated, I'm going to need you to figure out what I think you look like, and then change your hair accordingly. That good?"

"Shower. Sleep it off."

"Yeah. 'Night, honey."

Pepper stays in the front room of his suite, alternating between answering e-mails and browsing through a few professional websites. She pretends not notice when her boss peeks in on her. She stays long enough to know when he stops moving around in the other room.

* * *

Life with Pepper is about focusing on the details and willfully ignoring the big picture. It's tough. He and Pepper are both Big Picture kind of people. That Pepper seems to share his myopia makes life easier. It keeps them focused on each day, on the tasks that are immediately in front of them. Keeps them from acting on the many moments of…possibility…that crop up far too often to be innocent. Moments he doesn't have the balls to grasp and she has the wisdom to back away from.

It turns out there are upsides to restraint. The release of tension whenever he goes out is…spectacular. Perhaps not as satisfying as eyesex with Pepper, but certainly enough to leave him self-satisfied and it greatly reduces the chances of trying to work with a passel of red-headed brainiacs underfoot.

Focusing on the details comes with its disadvantages though. One of them being that all the little details he's noticed about her would fill up a book.

Like back when he'd first hired her she'd changed her hair color and style three or four times a year. Now, over eight years later, she's down to maybe once a year.

He doesn't search that little factoid for meaning. Doesn't _want_ to know the meaning. He's fine with allowing his observations be nothing more than that. Meaning without purpose is…well, meaningless. He doesn't need to know that Pepper is a chocolate snob (as already determined, their relationship does not include romance and Pepper prefers to accept apologies in the form of paperwork). He doesn't need to know about her family (he's never brought his up, so it's not as if she can reciprocate). He doesn't need to know what she does outside of work (only needs to know that he doesn't like it).

What he knows is that Pepper is tough as nails. Pepper is strong enough to fight him over anything, but only does so when she thinks he's harming himself or the company. Pepper is an absolute cutthroat; there is nothing that can stand in her way once her mind is set. Pepper has an incredible ability to motivate others; he knows video game designers that have programmed zombie hordes after Pepper's army of minions.

Maybe Tony isn't intentionally channeling Pepper when he starts drafting the plans for the Jericho missile, but she's there. The most direct, forceful, intense facets of her personality laid out on sheet after sheet of blueprints.

* * *

Pepper does not like Tony's plan (if that's what you want to call it) to travel into an active war zone to demonstrate (i.e. – show off) his latest miracle of destruction. She doesn't understand their enthusiasm – Tony's, Obadiah's, and even Rhodey's, on whom she normally relies on to help rein Tony in when he's being unreasonable – for the personal appearance.

It must have something to do with boys and their unrelenting fondness for explosions. Of any kind. She remembers the boys in the neighborhood where she grew up being just as excited over bottle rockets and cherry bombs.

It's all fun and games, after all, until someone loses a few fingers. Maybe a hand.

_She_ (Tony's offer to accompany him overseas not withstanding) has other plans for her birthday. Better plans. Plans involving manicures, pedicures, massages, facials, exfoliation, and seaweed wraps. All of those ridiculously trendy spa treatments.

And what the heck – her birthday only comes once a year, and she'll only live once. So she responds to Tony's flirting with more enthusiasm than usual. He deserves to get something for all the money she spent on herself.

She sees Tony off, then takes off herself for an ultra-exclusive resort (because that's what you get when you drop Tony Stark's name) high up in the Santa Monica mountains. There's a profusion of vineyards, a lack of cell service, and endless vistas. Pepper feels the tension melt away from body the moment she checks in.

Pepper, being Pepper, can't remain off the radar completely. She leaves an emergency contact number with the office. She stressed that she was to be interrupted only by Mr. Stark, and only then if no one could convince him to wait until she returns from her mini-vacation.

Rhodes is the one that makes it past her personnel firewall.

She has never experienced the kind of still, peaceful clarity that falls over her like a down comforter as he explains what's happened to their convoy in general and possibly (probably) to Tony in specific. Common sense warns her that this is shock, but as it doesn't seem to disrupt the order of her thoughts, she does not try to cast if off.

It keeps her eyes dry as she drives back to town, going directly to the office. Obadiah received the news hours before she did. He is as uncomposed as she's ever seen him. He looks at her as he paces and spouts reassuring platitudes. It feels a little as if she's watching a play; she blames it on her sense of disassociation. After all, Obadiah has known Tony for just about all of the younger man's life.

Despite that, Pepper suspects she knows Tony better. She's never bought into his larger than life persona. The surprise is not that this happened to Tony of all people, but that it took so long to happen.

The unreality of it all fades after… Well, it fades. Her sense of calm remains through. It freaks Rhodes out. She's not sure why. Working for Tony has trained her how to view disaster stoically, even calmly. She knows how to take one day at a time, how to do as much of Tony's work on her own as she can (which is quite a bit), how to best function in her boss's absence… It's not all that different than working when Tony is stateside but unreachable.

It's not until she knows he's been found that Pepper's serenity cracks. It's not until she knows he's going to be alright that Pepper can face the possibility that he could have gotten himself killed. It's not until she's on the way to the airport to pick him up that she realizes how much she's…missed…him.

It's not until he searches her face and they both open their mouths that Pepper realizes how little has changed.

It's not until later, after they've fought each other, fought _for_ each other, and she has searched his face (and he's opened his big, fat mouth) that Pepper realizes that _everything_ has changed.

* * *

Pepper makes it two weeks into the new paradigm – the Iron Man age – before she flees to a salon. Tony is surprised she holds out that long. He'd spent lazy, stolen moments back in his hell hole imagining what she might look like if he ever got back. Would her hair be longer? Shorter? Lighter? Darker? Curly? Straight?

Spiked?

He'd enjoyed the thought of Pepper with a faux-hawk, too much eye liner, and hundreds of golden brown freckles.

He'd been surprised and confused when he'd come home to the exact same Pepper he'd left behind. Eventually that'd given way to gratitude.

Pepper hadn't doubted him.

Actually, now that he thinks about it, he might be insulted by Pepper getting a haircut _now._

He's bored, even though he's in the middle of two needed – but boring – projects. He's redecorating the upstairs (he did put a large hole through a couple of levels) and modernizing his workshop with imaging technology that's a hybred born of his – now outdated – holographic units and the HUD tech from his helmet.

Okay, updating his workshop is never boring. What's boring is Pepper's insistence that he volunteer input into the upstairs décor when he really…doesn't _care_. He spends more time in his shop than anywhere else.

He has a thousand different design ideas running through his head (none of which have anything to do with paint samples, floor tiles, or throw pillows) when Pepper walks in with a new hairstyle.

It's sleek. Austere even. Maybe classical. The words don't really matter; he probably doesn't know the right ones anyway. The only directions he ever give his stylist is "make me look hot." But he knows what he likes, and while he misses the vibrancy of her former color, he _likes_ the way the new cut highlights the swoop of her jaw and the height of her cheekbones. He likes it enough to admit that going from a carrot top to a ginger adds warm tones to her previously milky complexion.

Then there's the striations of color, like exposed limestone, or a tiger's eye stone. Or those liquid density experiments children do with different types of fluid.

It makes Pepper look…commanding. Even less like someone to be messed with.

He wants to do just that, of course, starting with her hair. It looks so soft. He wants to touch it – not exactly a new urge. Since they both swerved away during their game of rooftop chicken he's felt an increasingly strong need to touch her whenever possible.

Besides, he knows how good her hair smells after she's been to see her stylist.

Some of his ardor cools when he notices the sample book under her arm.

"No. I told you, Potts, I'm delegating all the Martha Stewart touches to you –"

"And I made them. And then you told me it was too feminine and that I should consult you before I did irreparable harm to your 'Swingin' Bachelor Pad.'" She drops the book on his desk. Loudly.

It knocks papers off his desk.

Of course, she probably put them there.

"In my defense, it is a weight room and not a yoga studio."

"It was just an undyed linen wallpaper –"

"Not interested."

"I'm aware." Pepper's voice is dry. "And yet, you don't like the drywall either. Pick something."

"Italian marble."

"Last week that was pretentious." She looks unimpressed.

"Gold leaf."

"Too Trump Towers, unless you've changed your mind on that since last week too."

"Mirrors."

"No."

"Just 'no?' You don't have a reason for that one?" Tony idly flips through the sample book. He glances up when she doesn't answer. The look on her face is perfectly bland.

His lips quirk.

Wood samples. A hundred different grains, stains, and trendy names. He ignores the names and focuses on the grains and stains. He likes wood, likes the gentle, meandering linear patterns left by the tree's cycle of growth and rest.

Why hadn't Pepper thought of this sooner?

Tony chooses three or four different panels (he's drawn to all of them and sees no need to use just one when he likes a multitude) and tells Pepper to make it work.

Weeks later, when the weight room is fully complete, and they're doing a walk through… Well, not really a walk through. He's fiddling with the weights and flexing for Pepper's benefit, while she's across the room on her phone ignoring him. Mostly ignoring him. She does glance over occasionally, sometimes even allowing her gaze to linger.

It's during one of the times that she's not paying attention – actually not paying attention, not pretending not to – that Tony takes his own gander.

Pepper looks…amazing. She's irritated with whoever it is she's speaking with, which brings a rosy glow to her cheeks and a spark to her eyes. His ego suggests maybe all his flexing has something to do with the glow and the spark, but he knows her better than that. Pepper's a sucker for a good business challenge.

Part of him – a small part – thinks he should have promoted the hell out of her years ago. He understands that she's capable of doing so much more than what she does for him. The rest of him figures he just needs to find more for her to do.

She looks like a million bucks though, or like she works for an incredibly generous billionaire industrialist. (Goes without saying.) She's a class act from the tips of her very pointy shoes to the silky fall of her pony tail.

He never notices that the walls around them match her hair perfectly.

It won't be the last thing he fails to notice when it comes to Pepper Potts.


	12. Intimacy

100 Prompt Challenge

Prompt #21 – Hands

Intimacy

* * *

**HUMAN ELEMENT**

_Mark Stafford, Newsweek special contributor_

Tony Stark is a man who should need no introduction. Yet the businessman and internationally acclaimed superhero seems to possess a different mild mannered alter ego for every hour of the day.

Stark is the first one to admit to it. "This morning I was in Chicago talking to James McNerney and the rest of Boeing's board of directors about innovative propulsion systems to make commercial flight more affordable. This afternoon I was giving pep talks to some of my guys from the Expo about how to dumb down their lingo enough to attract investors. This evening I was trying to talk my way out of attending this shindig – Syria's still pissed about that flyover I did last week." Stark shrugs. "It's probably not the most political thing to say, but it was the fastest way to get to Turkey at the time, and speed is more important than politics when you've been buried by an earthquake."

A veteran of the Stark wars – his early battles to steer his father's company away from traditional methods of producing weapons, his blatant disregard of being the cynosure of the Press whenever he steps out in public, his kidnapping and what many viewed as a mental breakdown upon his return – I like to think I've managed to seen glimpses of the man beneath an often contradictory personality. The question remains though: Why is one of the most powerful men in the world attending an event benefiting the United Nations Industrial Development Organization when he'd rather not be? "It was pointed out to me that my name was still on the invitations even if we had to move the venue away from the Stark Expo campus."

The woman who doubtlessly did the pointing stands nearby, deep in conversation with a group of attendees which includes Paul Allen, Peter Sutherland and the U.N. representative from India. As hard to define as Stark, Virginia Potts' responsibilities in Stark's life are as fluid as the role he plays at any given time. Potts – who in the last year has filled the positions of personal assistant, CEO of Stark Industries, and finally the chief operating officer of the same company – glances away from her discussion to briefly meet Stark's eyes. Her expression might be summed up in one word: Behave.

Stark's nonverbal reply is just as easy to translate: We'll see.

The exchange takes seconds, as if they both are used to checking in with each other before refocusing on their separate tasks. Stark, still sporting the charming smile that's made hundreds of other women bow to his whims, seamlessly responds to a question asked about the relative ambition of hosting an entrepreneurial event during an Expo that has been mainly focused on technology as if his attention had been on me the entire time.

"You're not looking at the big picture. Technological advancement for the sake of curiosity leads to the abuse of technology. To risk being accused of plagiarism, the human element is – or should be – a very real concern when developing new technology. What people need to understand is that most technologic advancements don't become rewarding, or cost efficient, or whatever your beef might be with new tech, until it's put to the right work. To be put to work, it has to be put into the hands of the masses. To do that, inventors need to communicate with investors and entrepreneurs, who in turn need to use it to create jobs, which create economies and decrease crime rates, which ultimately benefits families, communities, and eventually entire countries."

It's an argument that can be – and has been– used against Stark's adamant refusal to turn over the secrets of his Iron Man technology to the government. Turning his own words against what has become something of a running firefight in the Senate does something that very little has ever accomplished: It leaves Stark at a loss for words.

"What needs to be understood about the Iron Man systems, including the Mark II platform that was briefly under the auspices of the US military, is that they represent brute strength at the most advanced form of mechanical elegance." Potts slips into the conversation as if she'd been an integral part of it from the beginning. Considering her longstanding employment with Stark, she likely has been. Her small hand hooks around Stark's elbow, whether to comfort or corral is anyone's guess. "But Iron Man is not a solution to hunger, or homelessness, radical theologies, or even war for that matter." Her gaze slips to the side where Stark is watching her with a surprising level of warmth. The close business relationship between Potts and Stark has achieved nearly legendary status, but I can't help but privately observe that this is something above and beyond matters of business and partnership.

"Iron Man is a stop-gap, emergency solution to problems that need people to come and dig in for the long haul. What you'll see here – water filters that can provide clean water for a family for 20 years; better, cheaper emergency kits for women in third world countries giving birth under horrific circumstances; sanitation packs for refuge camps – aim to solve those long term problems." Potts speaks with a quiet intensity that demonstrates her absolute belief in what she's saying. "And when these things are made in the countries that need them most? Then you're employing people who might otherwise be begging for enough food to feed their families, giving them money to send their children to school which will help keep them out of gangs, and supply a better educated workforce in the future. The benefits go on and on. Those are the kind of legacies we want our company to be remembered for."

Stark watches her for a few seconds, clearly admiring her conviction, or perhaps just the ease with which she stepped in and took the pressure off him. "I knew there was a reason I pay you the big bucks. Drink?" As Stark takes a half step back Potts takes one to the side, sliding easily into the space he'd just occupied. The exchange is made fluidly, with the ease of long experience. I've witnessed the play a few times before. Usually with the intent to free the boss up to pursue a more promising interview with an attractive woman. The vibe here is different; Potts returns Stark's warmth without becoming coy or cloying.

"Please." His hand lingers on her shoulder before he makes good on his escape. Stark keeps an eye not on the crowd as he puts in an order at the bar across the room, but on the statuesque woman before me. The remnants of the business day cling to her polite smile and the severe lines of a rather suit-like evening gown. Potts gives the impression of a woman who always puts business before pleasure.

It's unlike Potts to voice opinions about Iron Man in public, especially after she became one of Stark Industries corporate officers. All inquires from the press have been met with a polite "No comment" or the no less polite, but somehow less informative, corporate line about all the good Iron Man does.

"I'm slowly finding my footing," Potts admits when questioned. She pivots her body slightly, away from the drink bar. "My job title has changed recently, but the duties are almost exactly the same – focusing on what needs to be done each and every day to make sure Stark Industries can flourish. It's just that there's something different about being the person people come _to_ for a decision instead of the person people go _through_ to get to Tony." The difference isn't just the speed decisions are reached. By all accounts Potts is a more involved boss, remembering names, personal details, and holding everyone – including the CEO – to an unchanging standard of excellence.

Her confidence isn't just evident in what she chooses to speak out about, or the ease with which she's restructured many of the departments at Stark Industries. Potts, who in the past was always ready to jump as soon as Stark told her how high, is relaxed as her former employer comes up behind her with two martinis.

"Talking about me?"

"Not everything is about you… Tony, I don't like dirty martinis. You do." Their fingers skim as Stark tries to hand over the glass and she tries to give it back.

"I thought you just said everything wasn't about me."

"Well. You do have a way turning everything back to you."

The banter continues with the ease of long familiarity, with the kind of connection that was characteristic of Bogart and Bacall, that can make two people feel like they're alone when they're actually the hosts of a fundraiser for the U.N. Here, in the midst of the business elite and the technologically savvy, two people reestablish the human connection that all the rest is built on.

Watching them, I realize this is what the entire evening is about. They are what they're promoting. Stark – a member of the same stratified circle as Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, Larry Ellison – will always be best remembered for his contributions to electronics, robotics, and smart weapons. Though it's early to predict how far Potts will go, her current reputation suggests that she's the only reason the business community didn't turn it's back on Stark years go. Together they represent cause and effect – technology bettering the lives of ordinary people.


End file.
